


A Place To Stand

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Hugs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-08
Updated: 2009-10-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 21:58:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Castiel gets a hug and Dean is confused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place To Stand

Dean shuts his phone when Sam hangs up, breathes the cold air.

This is the way it'll go this time. He'll keep every single thing he has, he'll hold onto it so hard his fingers will bleed and he'll make damn sure it doesn't turn out the way it shouldn't. He'll make sure he puts his foot in the door every step of the way, even if he has to physically pull the damn world away from that future that's wrong like shards of glass under the skin.

When he turns back Castiel's watching him, curious but patient, and Dean thinks maybe he's the biggest idiot on the planet. Because he's been pushing so hard at the edges, at the places where Castiel wasn't like him. When he knows, realises- not too late but maybe already painfully- that he doesn't want Castiel to be like him.

He doesn't _ever_ want Cas to be like him.

He doesn't want him broken, all blunt edges and knife-sharp apathy. Dean doesn't want him lost and blurred and in fucking pieces, not even waiting to be fixed, just in pieces like future him left them wherever they fell.

Like he didn't even care.

Dean wants him just like this- needs him to be like this. Maybe the first friend he's ever had, messed up as that feels sometimes. Because Cas knows him, right down to the stuff he never wants to share and never would, and he has his back anyway. Has it without Dean even asking.

He's already reaching a hand out again, finding the solid curve of his shoulder, and it's crazy that this stranger, younger, less human and more _wrong_ version of him is the one that's familiar. The one that's reassuring.

This Castiel's body language is so open, expectant, trusting- and that's so rare, so stupidly rare in Dean's life; suddenly the hand on his shoulder isn't enough, and Dean's stepping close, right up into Cas's personal space for a change.

When the voice in his head tells him that this isn't distance, that this is something he doesn't just _give_ he ignores it. He folds an arm round Castiel's back, where he's cold from the chill of the air, and he presses all the way into him, until they're chest to chest at the side of the road.

Castiel is stiff and awkward, for just a second, in Dean's arms. Like he's not quite sure what a hug is, or what he's supposed to do during one, and it's so _Cas_ that Dean huffs laughter into his ear and presses his fingers tighter into his back.

Castiel relaxes, slowly, uncertainly, and then Dean feels the tentative touch of his hands on the back of his coat, holding him, almost carefully, as if he isn't quite sure how much force to use.

He smells strange this close, faintly like electricity under the skin and that strange, almost otherworldly but unmistakable smell of fresh snow in the cold night air. Like Dean has his arms around so much more than he's physically aware of.

Castiel exhales, slowly, quietly, and relaxes into Dean's grip.

Dean finds he's horribly reluctant to release him, to break this strangely intimate moment. Which he should be finding ten different kinds of uncomfortable. Because this isn't a _'friend you haven't seen for a long time'_ hug, it isn't an _'I've missed you'_ hug. Or even an _'I'm so glad to see you'_ hug. This is something different, something heavier, something that's new and strange and precious and Dean's afraid to pull away. Afraid that he'll break it somehow, maybe more afraid that he won't, that it'll still be there when they pull apart.

Castiel seems to notice the strange tension.

"Dean?" he asks curiously.

Dean's the one who eases away then, forced to by the depth of Castiel's voice, close enough to thrum all the way through his chest in a way he's not prepared for.

But he doesn't go far, not past the grip of that first outstretched hand, which has somehow curled fast round Castiel's shoulder again, fiercely reluctant to drop.

Castiel is wearing a very small, slightly confused, echo of a smile.

Dean thinks maybe this rare and precious thing is his, whether he chooses to take it or not.

But he's damn sure that this time he won't break it.

  



End file.
